The Renton Sonics?

I guess their suburban flirtation is supposed to prick Seattlites civic pride, but as far as I’m concerned, if we big city folk can manage to keep the Sonics in the region without personally footing a $200 million tax bill, it makes me all the prouder. I mean, it’s not like they’re gonna change the team’s name to the Renton Supersonics, for chrisakes.

Lots of sports teams don’t actually play within the limits of the city whose name they bear. The Dallas Cowboys play in Arlington, the Detroit Pistons play in Auburn Hills… hell, both the New York Jets and Giants play in New Jersey.

So if it makes financial sense for Renton or Bellevue to build a new stadium, and it makes financial sense for the Sonics to move there, more power to them… especially if they can do it without screwing over local taxpayers.

Developer Kemper Freeman, the man behind Bellevue Square mall, has suggested that the $400 million necessary to build a Bellevue arena could be raised without asking for tax money.

Really? I hadn’t realized stadium economics is that much different in Bellevue than it is in Seattle, but, well… a great civic leader like Kemper Freeman would never stretch the truth. It just makes me wonder why the Sonics insist that private financing is off the table for a Key Arena rebuild, but would consider a similar package in Bellevue?

But if it doesn’t make financial sense, then I sympathize with the local Renton or Bellevue taxpayers forced to foot the bill, though as a Seattle resident, that’s not really my problem.

Of course, it is possible — even likely — that neither Renton nor Bellevue will come through with a several hundred million dollar gift to the Sonics’ billionaire owners, forcing Starbucks chair Howard Schultz to either come back to Seattle with a reasonable proposal, or follow through on his threat to move the team out of the region entirely. And to show there’s no hard feelings if he chooses the latter, some local fans have organized a Sonics Farewell Party, Thursday May 11, noon, at City Hall.

So Stefan — I know you read this blog — WHY aren’t you going to share the loot from your lawsuit against Dean Logan and King County Elections with the generous donors to your “legal action fund” who paid for the lawsuit, instead of keeping it all for yourself?!

I’m sure there’s a whole consulting industry out there full of experts-for-hire who specialize in advising sports teams and promoters (e.g., NASCAR) on how to shake down blue-collar communities for hundreds of millions in taxpayer subsidies.

These guys — and the team owners who pay their exorbitant fees — without doubt are REPUBLICANS: You get all the bills, we get all the revenue and profits.

They don’t even blink at the price tag for the working stiffs whose wallets they’re lifting. After all, they don’t blink when it comes to paying athletes — or CEOs — over $100 million of OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY. Hell, the more the better, because they get a percentage off the top. So, the more they can rip the blue collars for, the bigger their own cut.

Reminds me of the pickpockets who worked the crowd at public hangings of pickpockets in Elizabethan England.

What we really need to do is hang more pickpockets. If we hang enough of ’em, maybe someday there won’t be any left. It didn’t work in Merry Olde England, and might not work here either, but what the hell it’s fun to try.

On a related topic, I see in the news this morning there’s a devastating new AP-Ipsos poll that even has Republican strategies acknowledging the GOP is facing an electoral “massacre” in November.

“Republican strategists said the party stands to lose control of Congress unless the environment changes unexpectedly. ‘It’s going to take some events of significance to turn this around,’ GOP pollster Whit Ayres said. ‘I don’t think at this point you can talk your way back from those sorts of ratings.'”*

Notice they didn’t say “House,” they said “Congress,” e.g., House AND Senate.

* This excerpt is quoted under the Fair Use Doctrine. If you want to know if it’s copyrighted, click on this link http://articles.news.aol.com/n.....2609990006 and find out. Don’t expect me to tell you; I’m not your fucking research assistant, I’m a FUCKING BUNNY!!!

Hey Goldy when are you gonna post the Daily Open Thread so I can post the sordid details of the new poll? This is too juicy to wait! Even 45% of CONSERVATIVES say BUSH SUCKS!!! Can you smell impeachment in the wind? GOD I LOVE THE SMELL OF IMPEACHMENT IN THE MORNING!!!

Well Goldy you can’t expect me to wait forever for the open thread! This is just too juicy to keep under my bonnet any longer! The new AP-Ipsos polls is devastating! It shows

AP – IPSOS POLL: EVEN REPUBLICANS THINK THE GOP SUCKS

Executive Summary: The GOP is in FREE FALL! Even David Irons Jr. is more popular than Bush and the GOP-run Congress, who the new numbers show would lose a head-to-head matchup against cigaret smoke.

The Gory Details:

Only 33 percent approve of Bush’s performance, down from 36 percent a month ago.

45 percent who consider themselves “conservative” disapprove of the president.

75% disapprove of Congress, including a whopping 65 percent of people who consider themselves “conservative.” (Wonder if Bush’s borrow-and-spend-like-crazy policies have anything to do with that?)

By a 51% to 34% margin, Americans want Democrats to run Congress.

Hell, even 31% of conservatives — almost a third — want Republicans out of power.

Since January, the percentage of the public who think America is “on the wrong track” has risen from 61% to 73%. Even 60% of people who consider themselves “conservative” — nearly two thirds — think the country is going in “the wrong direction.”

Since the 2004 election the percentage of registered voters who describe themselves as “strong Republicans” has plunged from 27% to 15%.

wow this thread is already up to 16 posts! That’s more than your pathetic little blog gets in a week, Stefan! You DID plant CARROTS this spring, didn’t you??? You BETTER have, you little twerp! or you’re gonna have rabbit pellets coming in the windows! (Hey, so it’s extortion — so what? If Howard Schulz can do it, why can’t I? Why should rich guys have a monopoly on extortion?)

Your assistance is requested. We are seeking to humanely trap and remove a particularly destructive rodent from Green Lake Park. If you have seen this rabbit http://news.yahoo.com/ and know where his burrow is, please click on this link http://www.aaanimalcontrol.com.....eattle.htm and call the listed number to inform our personnel of where to put our traps. Thank you in advance.

The machinations of the State legislature in this process are the aspect that deserves our concentrated attention. I don’t think it is going to matter along party lines at all either. It will get down to which set of fees and use taxes pay for which set of activities and/or subsidizing which sports at the expense of other public services. A corporation that seeks to maximize profit will do so by nearly any means possible, and in this case it will directly come from the taxpayers at a loss to the overall infrastructures of the society. I for one would love to see that actual audits of the Seahawks: their corporate writeoffs including salaries and benefits and other costs; taxes paid out to King County and the state balanced against the next 20 years of subsidies for the stadium; the overall costs to the city, county, region and state for services required to provide the stadium with its infrastructure requirements over those twenty years; and so forth. I seriously doubt that the Seahawks are losing money but i am sure the state, and all of its residents are in the long run. The Sonics will be yet another sinkhole of consumer capital regressive redistribution.

Don’t you pine for the good old days when sports team owners only wanted tax writeoffs? Now that the rich don’t pay taxes anymore, their motivation for owning teams has shifted to making profits. Since no sports team is self-supporting (how can they be, with their labor costs?), this is possible only if TAXPAYERS, in their lingo, “step up to the plate” with buckets of money. THIS IS ALL BUSH’S FAULT!!! If we bring back taxing of the rich, maybe they’ll go back to settling for tax writeoffs on money-losing teams and leave us alone. THE OBVIOUS SOLUTION IS TO ELECT DEMOCRATS AND REINSTATE THE PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAX ON INCOME FROM CAPITAL.

I don’t really know if this is Bush’s fault, but what the hell, goopers blame Clinton for everything, so why shouldn’t I blame the Sonics owners’ greed on Bush? It’s perfectly logical — Bush and his buddies practically patented greed.

And, JCH has to be depressed that there is a threat to muscley black men on TV.

Oh, I forgot, they are working on the great Republican Traffic Accident political strategy. How much must it suck when your candidates can’t even be seen in public with their President and all you have to talk about are dead scandals and traffic accidents. What a pathetic bunch of morons do you have to be when you can’t say anything about your party’s major “foreign policy” initiative because it is nothing more than wholesale murder for political gain THAT IS SINKING YOUR PARTY.

My bet is that Democrat Seattle will make an eight figure giveaway to the Sonics. Everything so far is just a sound-and-light show. The subsidy will be dropped from $200 million to $180 million, and Seattle taxpayers will pay dearly to keep one of their favorite Democrat icons in town.

My view of the Sonics is that they screw up my traffic and bring no value to my neighborhood, 2 miles from their arena. God Bless whatever shmuck town wants to host them away from Seattle’s downtown. God Speed the Sonics! Go, already!

Sometimes politicians, journalists and others exclaim; “It’s just a tax Cut for the rich!” and it is just accepted to be fact. But what does That really mean?

Just in case you are not completely clear on this issue, I hope the Following will help. Please read it carefully. Let’s put tax cuts in Terms everyone can understand.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the bill for all Ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it Would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy With the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since You are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost Of your daily meal by $20.” Dinner for the ten now cost just $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the First four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But What about the other six men – the paying customers? How could they Divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share?’

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted That from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would Each end up being paid to eat their meal. So, the restaurant owner Suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the Same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so: The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings). The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28% savings). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four Continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men Began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He Pointed to the tenth man,” but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, Too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than me!”

“That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back When I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get Anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for dinner, so the nine sat Down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they Discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between All of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our Tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most Benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being Wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might Start eating overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D Professor of Economics University of Georgia

The bill is presented by the waiter. The tenth diner, the wealthiest man, says: “I’m paying too much! I’m not going to do this anymore! I think we should all be paying equal shares, so that’s what I’m going to pay! He puts $10.00 down on the table and leaves.

The 8th and 9th dinners agrees with the 10th, put $10.00 on the table, and leave.

The four poorest diners didn’t have any money to pay for the meal anyway, so they leave without paying the bill.

This leaves the three diners in the middle looking at the bill. On the table is $30.00, leaving $70.00 to be divided between them. The waiter and the restaurant owner are getting concerned at the number of diners walking out, with the bill still unpaid. They inform the three remaining diners (get it – the middle class?) that unless the bill is paid, the police will be called, and they will be put in jail. The three remaining diners split the remaining $70.00 bill among them, but they only have the $9.00 they were originally expecting to pay. The police are called, and they get put in jail for not paying the remaining $61.00 bill. The judge lets them out as long as they agree to work second jobs as dishwashers until they pay off the remaining bill, plus fines and court costs. The restaurant bars all of them from ever returning.

In the meantime, the wealthiest diner is pleased with himself. After all, he had the most expensive lobster dinner of the group, costing well over $30.00, and his hissy fit allowed him to get off with paying only $10.00. Also, the other diner’s didn’t know that he actually owned a majority stake in the restaurant, and now has the services of three new dishwashers who are turning over all their earnings to him for the time being.

Conclusion: There’s nothing wrong with requiring those that benefit most from our government and our economic system to pay a greater share of its expense. When rich men start complaining that they “don’t feel the love yet”, its time to hold onto your wallets.

The top 1% pay over a third, 34.27% of all income taxes. (Up from 2003: 33.71%) The top 5% pay 54.36% of all income taxes (Up from 2002: 53.80%). The top 10% pay 65.84% (Up from 2002: 65.73%). The top 25% pay 83.88% (Down from 2002: 83.90%). The top 50% pay 96.54% (Up from 2002: 96.50%). The bottom 50%? They pay a paltry 3.46% of all income taxes (Down from 2002: 3.50%). The top 1% is paying nearly ten times the federal income taxes than the bottom 50%!

Start EARNING (and paying your own way) instead of suckking off the tit of mommy government that we producers feed with out hard EARNED money.

The bottom 50%? They pay a paltry 3.46% of all income taxes (Down from 2002: 3.50%).

Notice morons, 4 of the 5 top income tax payers are PAYING MORE compared with 2002, (and the only one that went down, slid a pitiful .02%) while the 50% bottom feeders have seen what little they actually pay go DOWN.

I’ll miss the Storm, but not the Sonics. If they move to Renton or Bellevue, I won’t miss them anyway.

Schultz seems to think that since the Seahawks and the Mariners got their stadiums, he should be treated equally with them. But in their case we were building two stadiums to replace one (combined use) stadium which was 25 years old, had scheduling conflicts between its major tenants, and suffered from limitations caused by excessive penny-pinching at the time it was designed and built.

In contrast, the Key Arena had been re-modeld just ten years previously, and the Sonics/Storm are the predominate tenants. Besides, the Schultz proposal was laughable. Only a fool would accept that deal, and he knew it. He’s trying to set the groundwork to move away – he has a sweetheart deal he’s already arranged, and he’s just trying to get a few more concessions by pitting Renton and Bellevue against each other. This may be a precursor to selling the team anyway. If he gets a dream deal in Bellevue or Renton the team is more valuable, or he has an open option to selling the team to a buyer in another city. There’s always a sucker born every minute. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Schultz.

Richard, you are tooooo much!!! HAR HAR HAR Boycott Wal-Mart? Sure thing! Boycott Exxon? Well, you could always walk to work, I suppose. If you’re not used to getting around on foot, I’ll be happy to offer my consulting services. Boycott STARBUCKS?! You jest.

I see Patrick Kennedy is going into rehab for his pill problem. Gotta give it to those Democrats, when they hit a pole while driving in a drug-induced fog, at least they ADMIT THEY HAVE A PROBLEM. Fucking Republicans won’t even admit to being Republicans! Look at Insurance Mike’s TV ads, you’ll see what I mean — he talks like a Democrat and doesn’t tell viewers in his ad that he’s a REPUBLICAN. Course I wouldn’t either if I were him … the GOP brand name isn’t doing so hot these days.

Speaking of tax cuts, our former neighborhood barber was a nice guy to go have a beer with if you didn’t care that he’s a Republican and didn’t mind his constant bitching about taxes. The other day I noticed the barber shop was closed so I asked the business owner next door where the barber went, and he replied, “he’s on the run from the IRS!” Another REPUBLICAN who spent years complaining about TAXES HE NEVER PAID.

The bottom 50% pay nothing, huh? Well, even if we had the flat rate tax system you Laffer Curve types jack off to all day (when you aren’t rubbing one out to pictures from Abu Gharib), they still would yield a lot fewer dollars because 10% (let’s say) of $15,000/year is still a whole lot less than 10% of the $400 million your hero the Exxon CEO took home in severence pay.

You know the answer. Also, who was running the show in Seattle that signed the crappy deal with Ackerley 10 years ago, which the City has had to pull general fund monies to support in the last few years?

Which leads to the next question, who is worse, the billionaire asking for money for a stadium, or the elected government ‘leader’ who bends over backward to give it to him?

“Notice morons, 4 of the 5 top income tax payers are PAYING MORE compared with 2002, (and the only one that went down, slid a pitiful .02%) while the 50% bottom feeders have seen what little they actually pay go DOWN.” Commentby howcanyoubePROUDtobeanASS— 5/5/06@ 2:02 pm

That’s merely a mathematical function of the fact the super-rich are getting MORE of the income while the working class gets LESS thanks to the policies of the CHEAP LABOR CONSERVATIVES running our government.

Let’s see, if we have a 10% flat tax (which by the way would result in permanent deficits of about 50% of the federal budget), Lee Raymond would pay as much tax as 26,666 households earning $15,000 a year — because he makes 26,666 times as much as they do.

[ ] 1. a billionaire asking for money for a stadium [ ] 2. a politician who bends over backward to give it to him [ ] 3. the idiots who defend taxpayer welfare for billionaires [ ] 4. the idiots who vote for politicians who pander to welfare-seeking billionaires [ ] 5. all of the above (note, (3) and (4) are usually the same people)

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